


Call and Response

by diamondrough



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Dad stuff, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Post S2, Teens in love, emo mike, filling in the blanks, learning how to live a semi-normal teen life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24365200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diamondrough/pseuds/diamondrough
Summary: In which Mike has every emotion, El figures out how to be a teenage girl, and Hopper leans hard into being a dad.A series of linked one-shots, beginning just after S1 and extending through S2.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler
Comments: 18
Kudos: 43





	1. november 12

**Author's Note:**

> hello, new quarantine fandom! it's so lovely to meet you, and to be a co-passenger on our curiosity voyage through this beautiful universe. pardon my late arrival - i'll try to make up for it with these sweet (mostly mileven) missing scenes and the post-s3 fic i'm just starting. 
> 
> find me on tumblr @emotional-synth-music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He calls, and eventually, she comes back.

\---

_november 12, 1983_

She’s gone.

The next day, he calls her for the first time.

Antenna up, Supercom set to the static channel she conjured Will’s voice out of, he asks her where she is. If she’s okay. To please, please come back. He tells her he’ll keep her safe, it’s okay, she can come back now - yeah, they bugged the phones, but he hid the Supercom from the agents swarming the house and it’ll be okay, he promises.

Months later, he looks back and feels almost crazy, being so certain that she was right there. 

Months after that, he’ll look back and be proud of his faith.

-

In December, he calls her. The first snowfall of the year has blanketed Hawkins by breakfast and it just keeps falling, all day. He tells her about the snowball war at lunch and how Lucas totally nailed Troy right in his mouth breathing face with the wrist rocket. He describes how it feels to crunch the snow under his boots and to be the first person to leave tracks on the sidewalk home. This feels important to him. It’s just, he’s not sure if she knows what snow is. If she’s ever seen it before. She needs to know.

He calls her quietly after he’s supposed to be asleep, the night of the Snow Ball. He almost hadn’t gone, but the Party had pulled democratic majority on him after Dustin swore up and down he could hack the sound system from the A/V room. It was okay, but it would have been more fun if she was there. He calls her on Christmas Day and New Years Eve because she’s probably never celebrated them, and just thinking about that makes his insides feel kind of shriveled up and even sadder than before. He knows you’re supposed to kiss someone you like at the start of the New Year. She should know that too. 

When he can’t sleep he looks up at the ceiling in the dark and makes lists of things he wants to tell her all about. Like presents, and Christmas carols. All the movies she needs to see to catch up. What a _best_ friend is. The members of the Ghostbusters and the different kinds of dice you need to play D&D and the tree behind his house that slowly grows small, sour apples in the spring. Where Sweden is. Ice cream. Homework. Biking to Lake Jordan in the summer and how you can’t help screaming a little when you first jump in, but it’s the kind of shock that makes you want to leap off the warm rocks again and again. 

-

It’s not summer yet, though. The weeks tick by, always the same day after day. He always forgets how March and April feel like the longest months of the year until they come again, cold and damp and grey. The nightmares start again too, and he wakes up shaking, panicked about things he’s not supposed to worry about anymore. Some nights there’s blood all over the floor, so much blood, and he’s watching again and again as Papa picks her up and tells her she’s sick and Mike’s struggling against the solid arms holding him back. He can’t do anything to help her and this man who stole her whole life is touching her again and he wakes up so angry he hurts. 

He calls her on a Friday night in May when it smells like rain outside, and he feels this creepy prickle on his skin, like someone’s watching him. His back is against the panel wood wall of the blanket fort and everyone else is asleep, the house silent. He calls her the next day, and the next, but he doesn’t feel it again. 

-

He starts to realize how often he does things while already thinking about telling her later, and how maybe that’s kind of fucked up. He feels off-kilter these days, anger spilling messily out of him everywhere he goes. No one else seems to remember her and that makes her feel even more distant, like something he dreamed one day in November and can’t forget. 

“This is stupid,” he hisses to himself in the dark, slamming the antenna down and tossing the Supercom onto his bedroom floor. _He's_ stupid. Everything about this situation and everything he can’t stop feeling is fucking stupid. 

-

He still calls. 

-

It’s first thing Sunday morning on some random weekend in July. He had a dream they went sailing together and then got lost at sea and ran out of fresh water, but just in time a giant creature with tentacles rose out of the surf and nudged them back toward shore. He’s bleary-eyed, flipping through his _Dungeon Masters’ Guide_ with one hand and holding down the broadcast button with the other - “I know it starts with a K, I think it’s like Krake or Krack or something” - when he feels a hand touch his fingers where they’re splayed on the book. He’s cold all over and he doesn’t realize he’s trembling until his thumb slips, losing his page, and she’s gone.

In August he doesn’t feel anything. He still calls. Steve pulls into to their driveway one night and has his windows down while he waits for Nancy, He’s blaring a power ballad to match his stupid hair, and Mike catches snippets of the lyrics from where he sits at his desk: ". _..dream of a girl I used to know...closed my eyes and she slipped away_.” Before he’s finished having the thought his body is already up and slamming the window shut.

-

In early September, Nancy comes down to rummage in the basement for an old board game, and finds him telling an empty channel full of static about getting detention for writing KOWALSKI BLOWS on the wall of the boys’ bathroom. The look of kind pity she gives him is unbearable. 

He’s pathetic. He’s been having conversations with a _ghost_ for over 300 days. She’s never coming back, and he barely knew her to begin with (but still, he felt something wordless drawing him to her like gravity, like the earth’s powerful core). Some days it feels just as fresh as it was the moment the dust cleared and the wall was whole, the room quiet, El nowhere to be found.

He’s losing it. Dustin and Lucas and even his _mom_ keep asking him what the hell is up, and he doesn’t know what to say. 

-

He still calls.

-

On Halloween, he swears to fucking God or whoever that he feels her breath on his cheek, so close he can almost feel the heat of her skin as she reaches out to touch and _shit_ , shit, his vision swims with tears as he slams the antenna back into the Supercom and jumps up out of the fort. He takes the stairs two at a time all the way up to his room and tries not to think about stupid dramatic shit like the sensation he’s missing a piece of himself. At least now he knows Will is losing his mind too. Someone else remembers. At least there’s that.

-

After Halloween, though, shit goes sideways. Fast.

It feels kinda good in some sick way; he doesn’t have to pretend to be normal anymore, like everything’s fine. They’re all back in the catastrophe together and he falls into the lead just like he used to. But he’s watching Will slip away minute by minute, and they stare at the tunnel vines on the walls and try to make sense of a shadow monster, and mostly he’s so, so scared. Last week things were bad, but at least they weren’t this supernatural, primal evil kind of bad. Suddenly, he’s helping Mrs. Byers rig up lights in the shed like an interrogation room in some spy movie, and they sit with Will, dredging up the earliest of their faded memories, trying to get to him without alerting that _thing._

But then it knows. It _knows_ , they gave it a hint and now it’s outside the Byers house where they’re trying desperately to arm themselves against something barely imaginable. He can hear them chittering and roaring, surrounding the house, and it sounds like a swarm of death.

They’re armed but it won’t be enough. He remembers how a long time ago El stood fiercely next to him, tiny and almost bald in Nancy’s dress. They can’t win but he’s ready, he holds up the heaviest thing he could find and crouches, tense behind Hopper who’s trying to decide where to aim the gun, and -

And then it’s silent. 

A corpse crashes through the window and they all stare. Hop nudges it bluntly with his foot, limp and wet. The seconds tick by slow, so slow, and then the lock on the front door 

turns 

all by itself. 

They all look and Mike, his heart stops, his breath goes silent, the door swings open without a touch, and he sees his own old sneakers on the step and _holy shit_. He’s crying, he doesn’t know why because this can’t be real but it’s too much for his body to contain and he can’t blink, she’s so beautiful he can’t understand what he’s seeing. And then she says his name and she’s _real_ it’s real it’s real, he reaches for her and she fits easily into his arms, just like that. His heart is going to pound right out of him as he holds her because it’s been almost a year but ( _El_ ) she’s warm and solid and _there_. Now they’re both crying ( _El, El_ ) and her face is smudged with makeup and her nose is bleeding on his shirt ( _I knew it, I knew you’d come back_ ) and he’s so happy and so scared he doesn’t know what to do. So he tells her. 

_I never gave up on you. I called you every night. Every night, for -_

_Three hundred and fifty-three days. I heard._

-

Hours later, he sits quietly in the dark at the end of the sofa. Everyone is asleep in a scattering of air mattresses and sleeping bags on the floor, no one willing to leave anyone else alone. Not tonight, not at the end of the world. The streetlight filters through a gap in the front curtains, just enough to see her by, and he catalogues the familiar features and small changes. She looks a little older, her features filled out, her cheekbones and elbows less sharp and thin. He’s dying to know what Hopper meant when he asked her where she’d been. There’s time enough for questions tomorrow, but the part of him that can’t sleep is the same part that worries she’ll disappear again without a trace. He hasn’t even found out what her hair feels like in his fingers yet. She didn’t have any to touch, before, and he never would have been brave enough anyway. Now, brave seems irrelevant. 

She stirs slightly and opens her eyes, squinting into the darkness. “Mike?” she whispers.

“Hey. I’m right here,” he whispers back, and she nods and closes her eyes again, turning into the pillow. Like she just wanted to know he was there.

Something unknots in his chest, something that’s been tense for so long he forgot what it’s like to breathe all the way out. Right now, the world holds still around them. 

-

He falls asleep thinking about how to ask her to the Snow Ball. 


	2. november 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of catching up to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today in things that are surprisingly hard: writing decent dialogue between two mid-'80s teens, one of whom was almost nonverbal and then learned vocabulary from watching daytime TV.
> 
> Anyway, here's a lil' slice of life/catching up/window into El's learning process. Thank you for the positive feedback thus far, it means a lot to me.

_\---_

_november 25, 1984_

Hopper picks him up first thing in the morning, right after breakfast. He doesn’t really know what to say and thankfully Hopper doesn’t seem to either, so they leave each other quiet and Mike concentrates on memorizing the route so he’ll know how to come back on his bike. They go deep into a part of the forest he doesn’t recognize, driving until the dirt road just ends. Hopper parks, turns off the engine, and gives him a look. “C’mon. We’re close.”

They hike up an incline of damp leaves, Mike stumbling over his own legs the way he seems to be doing constantly these days, and within a few minutes a drab, brown cabin comes into view. 

“It’s not much, but it’s got a solid foundation,” Hopper says into the quiet, gesturing toward the cabin as they approach. “Been in my family for a while, lasted a few generations. Definitely needed a good clean when we moved in, but it’s done alright.”

 _When we moved in._ Mike’s trying, he really is, but something half-angry, half-jealous flares up inside him at this casual remark, a reminder of how much time he spent wishing for El to come back when she was right under his nose. Instead, Hopper found her. Hopper took her home. Hopper kept her hidden and protected for months on end. Mike wants to ask him yet again why the hell Hop didn’t tell him, why he wasn’t allowed to help protect her too, but he knows how futile this argument is. 

What he actually says is “Oh,” and his voice cracks just a little. “Uh, cool.”

“Yeah. Bitchin’,” says Hop, dry as hell like he’s laughing somewhere on the inside, and leads him up the steps to the rickety porch.

“Hey, kid,” Hop yells as they walk in, tossing his hat and keys onto the kitchen table. “You got a visitor.”

The green door just off the living room creaks ajar, and then suddenly El is there, wearing a plaid flannel that looks three sizes too big, smiling brightly at him like he’s the best surprise she could have asked for.

“Hi, Mike,” she says, and doesn’t hesitate a bit, just walks up and puts her arms around him like she does it every day. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says into his shoulder, and he’s hyper-aware of Hopper staring him down but he’s not one to waste any opportunities when it comes to her, not now. So he folds her into his arms and pulls her a little closer, tucks his chin so he can breathe her in. “Me too. Like, really glad.”

They just hold each other like that for several long moments. Mike is still kind of overwhelmed by everything in general, but right now he’s overwhelmed specifically about how his cheek is pressed against El’s hair, which is very, very soft, and the faint scent of soap and lavender and something unnameable that’s making him sort of forget how to breathe. 

Hopper pointedly clearing his throat is pretty effective at snapping him out of it. 

“Okay, kiddos, you catch up. El, give him the grand tour of the amenities. I’ll be on the porch.” Hop fills his coffee mug and digs for the pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket, shaking one out and tucking it behind his ear. He gives Mike a hard look. “Bedroom door stays open. No funny business, Wheeler.”

“Yes, sir,” mumbles Mike, struck by a confusing mixture of nerves and curiosity. El just looks confused.

Hop nods, then heads out to settle himself on the one weathered deck chair outside, letting the screen door slam. 

“So, uh...this is where you’ve been,” says Mike, meaning to look around but staring at El instead. 

“Yes,” she says quietly. “This is where I’ve been.” She turns and looks around the cabin. “Not many amenities.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty small. But you have your own room at least, right?” Mike asks.

El smiles, bright as the sun again. “Yes. Come see.” 

He follows her into a small, cozy room, gradually getting more light through the window as the morning ticks on. She sits down on the edge of the bed, made up with a worn floral quilt, and gestures around her. “This is my space. No one can come in unless I let them.” 

The walls are almost completely bare, but the white curtains on the window are pretty and new, and El looks satisfied. Mike sits down beside her on the bed.

“Did you ever have that? Like, your own space? Before?”

El looks at him blankly, then looks down, shakes her head. “No. I had a bed, in a room. No windows. The door locked from the outside. There was a camera, so they could watch me if they wanted.”

_Jesus._

Mike remembers teaching her the word “privacy.” He takes her hand and runs his thumb over hers, gently.

“That’s really messed up. They never should have done that to you.”

El looks up at him and smiles just a little bit. “Will you help me make it nicer? Your room has pictures and books and things. This is empty but I don’t have things to fill it with.”

Of course he will. She could ask him to jump into a flaming volcano and he’d probably do it for her. “Yeah, totally. Anything you need.” El smiles a little bigger and Dustin’s right, he’s totally gone. 

Then a thought occurs to him. “Wait. You said that when I was calling, you heard, right?” 

El nods.

“Were you hearing through a radio, like when you found Will? Or did you visit me and see where I was, like in the void?”

“I came to visit you.” El looks pleased with herself. “I could see you. In the basement and in your room. I visited you a lot.”

Wow. Holy _shit._ “There were a few times when I thought I felt you there. Or like someone was watching me.” He laughs a little, but she hears a note of sadness in it. “I thought I was going crazy. Like I wanted you to be there so bad I started imagining it was real. But I guess it was.”

El squeezes his hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer you. I wanted to.”

Mike sighs. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s not, it sucked, but I get why Hopper did it. He was trying to keep you safe.” El nods. He pauses, then asks, “So, did you like, build a float tank in the backyard or what? To be able to visit, I mean.” 

That same look of pride shows on her face again. “No. I don’t need that anymore. I can do it right here.” She points to the TV out in the den. “I use a blindfold, and put it on a static channel. It feels just like it did in the bath. It’s easy.”

 _My girlfriend has superpowers_ , Mike thinks, then catches himself, appalled at where his brain is leaping already. _She’s been back for like a week, Wheeler, calm down. Your friend, El, has superpowers. This girl who’s really, really cool and that you obsessed over for a year has superpowers. Okay. Shit._

It’s hard to be calm when El is looking into his eyes like that, her hand still warm in his, leaning in a little closer with a soft smile. “But it was easy because of you, too,” she says, almost in a whisper. “Because I wanted to find you so much, and you wanted me to find you too. That makes it easier.”

She’s so close he almost can’t focus on her eyes. He means to say something like, thank you for finding me, but he can’t speak. That night in the Hawkins Middle gym feels like a thousand years ago, but that same magnetic feeling is right here, catching hold of him as El’s eyes flutter closed, and there’s no turning back now. 

Their lips touch ever so gently, and hot embers glow in Mike’s chest. Her mouth is impossibly warm and soft, tasting faintly of cherry Chapstick. He pulls back just enough to look, her eyes dark, and when she squeezes his hand he leans in to kiss her again. It’s a few seconds that feel like hours, and when they pull apart Mike can feel the heat blooming in his cheeks. El bites her lip, looking at him, and if he wasn’t already totally gone, he really would be now. 

“Wait, come back for a sec, come back,” he says, leaning close, then places a small kiss on the very tip of her nose. She laughs and he’s honest to God not sure if he’s ever heard her laugh before. Her expressions were so subtle when he first met her, like she didn’t know quite how to show things. But now, in this moment, it feels like the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard, and he wants to promise to make her laugh every day. She deserves it. 

“Thanks for coming to find me, even if I didn’t know you were there.” 

She smiles again ( _pretty - really pretty_ ). “Thank you for calling me. For not giving up on me.”

Mike looks down, aware that his eyes are burning a little. “So obviously I wanna know everything about while you were gone. But I know everything that happened took a lot out of you, so um, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” He returns his gaze to her. “Um, if you want to save it for another time or something that’s cool too - ”

“Mike,” she says, stopping him. She sighs gently. “I want to tell you. I just don’t know if I can say it all. Not right now.”

He takes her hands again. “That’s okay. Tell me whatever you want. Like...what about right after you disappeared? How did you end up with Hopper?”

“I was in the Upside Down for a little while. Not very long. But then I found a way out, back into the school. I went to your house, but when I looked in all the bad people from the lab were there, and I was so scared that they would find me. Or that they would hurt you because of me. So I ran into the woods, and they looked for me but I hid. After a while Hopper found me. He said that no one knew about this place and it could be my home.”

“Oh,” says Mike quietly, his eyes burning again. “You were really close.” He remembers sitting in his living room, hating the agents and their fake, placating voices more than he’s ever hated anything in his life, still shaky and imagining that maybe she’d be in the basement when he went back down, and everything would be okay.

He blinks a few times, then asks, “How did Hop find you?”

El laughs a little. “He likes to tell me he set an El trap. With Eggos as bait.”

Wait. 

A trap? She needed food? 

“Uh, how long were you out there in the woods for?”

El’s expression flattens, and she looks away. She wouldn’t lie, but she clearly doesn’t want to say. She’s silent for a long moment.

“He took me home on day twenty-seven.”

Mike’s certain he must have misheard. “Day what?”

“Twenty-seven.” 

Mike feels lightheaded all of a sudden. She was out there in the woods, in the dark, cold and alone for almost a _month_ before she got somewhere safe. _Fuck._ He gapes at her for a moment, then gathers her in his arms without really thinking about it. She tucks her head against his shoulder like she trusts him, and he’s struck by a nauseating wave of guilt.

“I’m so sorry, El.”

She tilts her face up to look at him. “Why?”

“You were out there alone for so long. I should have helped you, I should have looked for you.”

She turns back toward his chest and snuggles closer. “No. You didn’t know I was there. And it was dangerous. I’m happy you were safe.” She pauses. “I was okay. I figured out how to build a fire.”

“Really?” he asks, feeling slightly less angry with himself, but still sad at the scene he imagines.

“Yes. And a man came and yelled at me about it and I thought he was going to take me away, but then I hit him with a piece of wood from the fire and stole his coat.”

“Okay, that’s pretty badass. But still - ”

“Mike.” El’s looking at him again, a small smile playing around her lips. “It was a long time ago. It’s okay.”

It’s not okay, not at all, but he doesn’t want to push. And she really, really does seem happy. 

“Fine. You’re gonna have to fight with Lucas over who gets to be the Ranger of the party now, though.”

El narrows her eyes. “Ranger?”

“Yeah, it’s a kind of character in Dungeons & Dragons. They’re these awesome warriors who live in the wilderness and are really good at tracking and hunting. Sometimes they can do spells too.” 

“Oh. Okay,” she says, looking bemused.

“You missed out on some really good campaigns this year. You don’t have to be a Ranger, I was just kidding.” He’s blushing again. _Why can’t I just shut up?_ “You could be a Mage, or a Druid, or whatever you want. Um, if you ever want to play, I mean.” Great, he’s rambling about this dorky kids’ game that she probably won’t even want to play. Who would, especially if they had _real_ superpowers?

“I’d like to play,” she says, rescuing him from his inner monologue. “If you don’t mind teaching me.”

 _Oh._ Yes, he really wants to (but to be honest, he wants to do anything that gives him a reason to come over and see her). He grins, relieved. “Yeah, yeah, of course. I don’t mind at all."

El points at one of the few shelves that has something on it: a stack of weathered board game boxes. “I play a lot of games with Hop, when he comes home from work. It’s nice.” Mike can just make out a few of the titles: Monopoly, Risk, Clue. 

“That’s cool. Those are classics. Um, what else did you do all year? I guess you were here alone a lot.”

“Yes. There are some books here, so sometimes I read, but usually I watched TV. It helped to hear people talking. And I looked at the dictionary a lot because there are still a lot of words I don’t know.” 

Mike feels a rush of pride. She still sounds maybe too serious or stilted sometimes, but in comparison to what she was like when they first met? 

“You’re doing really amazing,” he says, taking her hand again. It’s crazy how easy and natural that feels, just to reach out and touch her. 

“You think so?” she asks, looking down at their hands.

He dips his head, bending over and almost looking upside down to catch her gaze again. She lets out a surprised giggle and God, he loves that sound.

“Yeah, I think so! Of course I think so. When you first came here it seemed like you had a really hard time talking, but now it’s way easier, and it’s really cool that you, like, taught yourself stuff just from watching TV and looking in the dictionary.”

She smiles. “Thank you.”

They look at one another. Her eyes are a deep, chocolate brown colour that he never got to really notice before. Now, though? She’s just looking at him, and he’s transfixed. He read a chapter of one his mom’s cheesy romance novels one time when he was _super_ bored, and he remembers groaning with Lucas over the flowery descriptions of getting lost in each other’s eyes. They’re just eyeballs. How romantic can they be?

Turns out, all the cheesy stuff is kinda true. He could pretty much sit here all day just memorizing that exact shade of brown. 

And he _really_ wants to kiss her again. 

But instead, El takes her hands out of his and shifts backward on the bed, toward the small dresser. “Can I...show you something?” she asks.

“Yeah, of course.” He tenses a little, not sure what to expect. Hopefully not something weird, but he’s had a lot of bad surprises lately.

She opens the drawer and pulls out a small green notebook. Looks pretty normal, but she’s blushing. _Holy shit, is that her diary?_

El sits back next to him and opens the notebook to the first page, covered in blue pen. “This is all my notes, about things I was learning. Like words, and things that people mentioned on TV, and stuff Hop said was important.”

She flips ahead past a few pages covered in disjointed bullet points and what looks like a list of cities, to a list titled “Word of the Day.” Below it is two columns of tightly written words, spreading onto the next page, almost all crossed out.

 ~~_aunt, uncle, cousin  
_ _brunch  
_ _workplace  
_ ~~ ~~_scout  
_ _fancy  
_ _undercover  
_ _puzzled  
_ _sedate  
_ _aghast  
_ _merchandise  
_ _marry  
_ _scruffy  
_ _formal  
_ _toaster  
_ _smart  
_ _rush hour  
_ _compromise  
_ _whatever  
_ _casserole  
_ _scumbag  
_ _evidence  
_ _seaside_ ~~

Below that, there’s a list of phrases, fewer crossed out, with question marks next to them.

~~actions speak louder than words~~

~~blood is thicker than water~~

shotgun wedding?

~~preaching to the choir~~

old flame?

~~skinny dipping~~

truth or dare?

El turns the page before Mike can fully process what he’s seeing. And then he kind of just wants to cry, because this page is headed “Things Mike talked about.”

 ~~snowball  
meatloaf  
crazy  
~~ ~~new year’s eve~~  
birthday *****  
 ~~nervous  
homework  
dating  
hope   
boombox  
~~ ~~star wars~~  
karate kid?  
ghostbusters?  
 ~~missing  
road bike  
kraken  
kiss  
gravity  
revenge  
VHS  
eclipse ~~

The list keeps going but he can’t read any further because yeah, he’s crying now and that’ll just make it worse. It feels like all he’s been doing lately is crying or feeling pissed off or both, so this isn’t exactly new. But it’s different - for once he’s not sad or angry or grieving, he’s just...grateful.

“See? I heard,” says El, and then he’s laughing and crying at the same time and she takes his hand in hers, and he’s so, so grateful. For her, for another chance, and even for Hopper, as much as he’ll hold a grudge for a while. 

Eventually he collects himself enough to look back at the page. “So um...okay, I remember mentioning most of these. The Karate Kid and Ghostbusters are these really great movies. I don’t think they’re out on tape yet, but as soon as they are we can rent them so you can see them too.” He pauses. “Why does birthday have a bunch of stars next to it?”

“Oh, I wanted to remember to ask Hop about it. Because when I looked it up I kind of understood, but I realized I didn’t know if I had a birthday.”

Of course she didn’t know. Why would she have anything normal in the lab? _Those fucking bastards._

“So? Did you?”

El smiles. “No, but that meant we got to pick one. I like that more than having a birthday they gave me.”

“When is it?” 

“March 20. It’s the first day of spring. Hop said it’s like a new beginning. And um, also, I picked it in February and I didn’t want to wait too long.”

Mike snorts.

“ _And_ I didn’t want to be the youngest,” she adds. 

“Those are all good reasons. I mean, most people’s are just random so having any reason at all is kinda special.” A realization hits him. “El! This is so cool! Your birthday is right before Will’s, like two days apart! You guys could have a joint party or like, do a whole weekend-long extravaganza. It’ll be awesome!”

El looks just as delighted as he feels. Then she stands, grabs the thick dictionary from her desk, and starts paging through the E’s with excitement. 

“That was my word of the day a little while ago, but I forget…” She trails off, then taps the page when she’s found it. “Noun. ‘An elaborate and spectacular entertainment or production.’ We could do _that_ for a birthday?”

“Yeah, totally! And it’ll be extra special because you’ve only ever had one birthday before, so it’s important.”

El’s smile gets even bigger, if that’s possible, and she leaps back onto the bed, bouncing on her knees next to him. “It’s important,” she echoes.

“Yeah. _You’re_ important,” he says looking up at her, light shining through the wisps of hair that have escaped her hairband.

She stills, looking a little surprised. She looks into his eyes, then down at his mouth, and says softly, “I’d like to kiss you again.”

Mike literally feels his heart flutter (more cheesy shit that turns out to be real). He’s pretty sure he’s never wanted anything more in his life. “I’d - I’d like that, too.”

She smiles, then takes his face gently in her hands and leans down. Her hands are so warm against his skin, and as their lips meet, he takes a leap and puts his hands around her waist. She shifts so she’s no longer leaning down to meet him, and presses her mouth more firmly to his, letting out a soft sigh. _Oh, wow_. He wraps his arms around the small of her back and hugs her, wanting her closer somehow, and is rewarded with another small noise of contentment. They trade soft kisses - her lower lip, the corner of his mouth, her cheek - and then El rests her head on his shoulder. Her mouth is close enough to his neck that he can feel her breath as she whispers, “Is this ‘funny business’?”

Mike laughs. “Uh, yeah, this is pretty much exactly it.”

Hopper chooses that exact moment to bang the screen door open as he comes back inside, making them both jump and almost bash their heads together.

“I’m making bacon and eggs, get out here if you want some,” he calls from the kitchen, clanging pots together as he rummages in the cupboard for the right frying pan. Lately, pretty much the only thing Mike’s been doing more than crying or being pissed off is eating, so by the time everything’s actually cooked he’s already polished off four slices of toast. 

“You’re a bottomless pit, kid,” says Hopper as he puts a plate full of bacon and fried eggs, and the rest of the loaf of bread, on the table. “Don’t hit your head on the doorframe when you’re a foot taller next week.” He flicks the TV on and settles into the couch.

Mike starts assembling a triple-decker sandwich, and El sits down next to him and starts building a tower of Eggos and bacon, held together with syrup. Their knees touch under the table and El smiles at him as she digs her fork in. Yeah, he could really, really get used to this.

-

(He does.

In the next few weeks he’ll start coming over every weekend for brunch and movies and talking, sometimes alone and sometimes with Nancy along to offer El some more loaned books and hand-me-downs. Just before the Snow Ball, Nancy will drop by after school unannounced with a dress and what she explains are eyeshadow and lip gloss, and El will remember the offer that maybe, Nancy could be like her sister. 

Soon enough he’ll upgrade to two days a week, then three, then four. Eventually she’ll be allowed to visit the Wheelers’ house under the cover of darkness, and they’ll squeeze into the blanket fort to start on Star Wars one early evening. By January it just doesn’t feel right if they go a day without seeing each other, and the streak will build from days quickly into weeks. 

El’s hair will grow longer, and she’ll grow brighter, more outgoing. Mike will grow mostly upwards, and he’ll (almost) let go of the fear that she’ll disappear into thin air again. The small, perfect bubble they create grows more real as they discover one another, this time without the looming shadow of anything otherworldly. There will be no urgency or fear. Just time. 

Life will never be normal - not for these people, in this place - but for a while, it will be _good_.)


	3. december 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What is…dad stuff?”

_\--_

_december 14, 1984_

“Are you my dad now?” she asks, apropos of nothing.

Hopper chokes on his coffee mid-sip.

When he stops coughing, he asks, “Alright, where did that come from?” He knows the answer (or at least _his_ answer) to her question. But he’s still gonna need a little more context for this one.

El puts down that Sweet Valley High trash Nancy brought over and looks at him. “Mike says you’re sort of like a dad. Dustin, too. And Will. But I don’t know.” 

She seems uncharacteristically nervous. Hopper doesn’t know what this is about, exactly, but he knows it feels important.

“Well, okay, yeah. It makes sense that they’d say that. I do a lot of dad stuff,” he says, trying to leave her room to take the lead on wherever the hell this is going. 

“What is… _dad stuff_?” she asks.

“Well, um…” Hopper looks around the cabin. “I make sure you have a home and food to eat and clothes to wear. And I make rules to keep you out of trouble.”

“Okay…” she says, looking confused.

He’s starting to feel oddly nervous too, like he’s trying to sell her on the concept. “It’s...if I’m your dad, it means I’m responsible for you being safe and happy, and having a good life. And I have to make sure you turn out okay as a person. And sometimes we might argue, but if I’m your dad it means I never give up on you.”

“Never?” she asks, fussing with the ends of her hair the way she does when she’s worried. 

“Never, ever.” He smiles at her, looking more confident and calm than he feels. “Oh, and part of dad stuff is making bad jokes and being really embarrassing in front of your friends.” He’s trying to make her laugh, but she just smiles weakly in response, not meeting his eyes. She’s silent for a few long moments.

“But you’re Sarah’s dad, aren’t you?” she asks. Oh.

So _that’s_ where this is going. 

Hopper leans forward in his chair, trying and failing to catch her gaze. “Yeah, I’m Sarah’s dad.”

“Even though she’s gone? The black hole took her?”

“I’ll always be her dad,” he says, softly. “That never goes away, even though she’s gone.” He twists the elastic around his wrist once, then twice.

El takes a deep breath and looks up. “So, then Mike and Dustin and Will are wrong. Because you’re already _her_ dad.”

_Oh, kid._

Hopper gets up and moves to sit beside her on the couch, putting an arm around her and pulling her close so her head nestles in the crook of his arm. She leans into him, just like she always does when she’s getting tired but wants to stay up to finish whatever bad movie they’re watching. 

“Listen up, because this is important, okay?” She nods into his chest. “You’re right that I’m Sarah’s dad. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t also be your dad. Mike and Will and Lucas, their parents all have more than one kid, right?”

“Yes,” she says softly.

“Well, this is the same thing. It just took a little longer, ‘cause I knew I was Sarah’s dad when she was born, but I didn’t know you until this year.” He’s feeling a little antsy again. Yeah, she’s just a kid, but she’s becoming _his_ kid, and he doesn’t want to fuck this up. 

“You don’t have to have always been someone’s dad. You can become someone’s dad, by adopting them.”

“Like Anne of Green Gables,” she says, nodding.

“Yeah, exactly. Like Anne.” He takes a deep breath in. “Regardless of how it happens, the most important part of dad stuff is that you love your kid. And I’ll always love Sarah, but I also love you, too.”

El is very, very quiet, and he has no idea how that landed. He leans slightly away so he can see her face. She just looks kind of...stunned.

Hopper panics for just a moment, certain he’s said the wrong thing or pushed too fast, but then he realizes.

“El, has anyone told you that they love you before?”

She shakes her head, still looking blank, and he hugs her in closer. “Okay, hon. Well, it’s important. Do you know what it means?”

In a small voice, she says, “Tony said it to Anna when he wanted her to marry him on Days of Our Lives. And Dustin’s mom says it every time he leaves the house.”

Hopper can’t help chuckling. “Uh huh, okay. Those are some examples, I guess.” He didn’t really anticipate this part of taking El home, but hey, someone’s gotta explain abstract concepts to this kid who was a lab rat for the first twelve years of her life. 

“So, uh. There are different kinds of love. You can love someone who’s in your family, or a friend, or a boyfriend or girlfriend, and those are all a little different. But the most important parts are all the same.”

“What is the important part?”

 _How the hell do I explain this?_ “Uh, well...when you love someone, you really like most things about them, and even if you don’t like them sometimes you still care about them. Um...you trust each other. And it feels really important to spend time together, and that the other person is happy.” 

Hopper can’t tell if he’s shitting out his mouth or saying something totally profound. El doesn’t look too confused, at least. He plows forward.

“Uh, so in the context of dad stuff...love means that I’ll always be there to support you, and it’s important to me that you’re happy. Does that make sense?”

She nods, looking a little brighter. “Yes, I think so.”

“Okay, good.” And now they’re back to the original question. The question one of them was going to have to ask sooner or later. He looks down at her and gently ruffles her hair.

“So, what do you say? Do you _want_ me to be your dad?” He knows what she’s going to say, but his heart still leaps in his chest when she smiles broadly and says, “Yes.”

“Good answer,” he says gruffly. “Me too.” She laces her small fingers with his and relaxes into his side, and he’s honestly really fucking impressed with himself for not crying like a giant baby.

Then he catches sight of the small blue band on his wrist, the one that El is holding tightly, and yeah, okay, maybe white-knuckling it through this whole talk isn’t gonna cut it.

He swallows, lets go of her hand briefly to slide the elastic off, and hands it to her. 

“This belonged to Sarah.”

She looks at him with those wide eyes.

“I want you to have it now,” he says, and she takes it, carefully putting it on her own wrist. It just barely covers that goddamn tattoo and there’s probably a beautiful metaphor or something here. But Hop doesn’t have time to think it through because El looks at her wrist and softly says, “Sister,” and then he’s totally fucked. 

“I’m sorry,” says El, looking worried. “Please don’t cry.” 

Hop’s nose is running and he’s gonna have to find a clean shirt to wear after wiping his face with the sleeve of this one. He hugs her close anyway.

“It’s okay, this is a good cry,” he says roughly into her hair. “It’s because I’m happy.”

She relaxes and he hears the smile in her voice. “Me too.”

They stay there together for a long minute, just sitting. Finally, El breaks the silence.

“We’re going to miss Miami Vice.”

Hop snort-laughs. This fucking kid. 

“Well, can’t have that.” He ruffles her hair, then leans back into the couch and puts his feet up on the chipped coffee table. She rearranges herself and copies him, her shorter legs stretched out next to his, and flips the TV on with a sharp nod. They’re just in time to catch the flamingoes in the opening credits, and he can see her smiling excitedly out of the corner of his eye.

 _That’s my daughter_ , he thinks, and he feels the gravity of the thought, but he’s not terrified the way he was the first time around. They’ll be okay. He’ll make sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> postscript: things that hopper learns are also "dad stuff" include:  
> \- carefully titrating the amount that wheeler kid is allowed to come over so el is happy but he doesn’t get too comfortable  
> \- making sure the freezer is always stocked with original and blueberry eggos (but not the inferior chocolate chip)  
> \- briefly attempting to give her The Talk and then bribing joyce to do it instead  
> \- not trashing the cabin with rage when she says “papa didn’t love me”   
> \- browsing ugly ass floral shirts (that are kinda growing on him) because she thinks they look bitchin'


End file.
